


University ot Texas 





It's Duties, Opportunities, 
Prospects 


A Final Message To the Board of Regents 
by 
URMon oe MES, 


President, Resigned 


AUSTIN 


December Sixteen, Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen 





All bulletins published by the Organization for 
the Enlargement by the State of Texas of its 
Institutions of Higher Education are intended to 
stimulate critical thought. In order that correct | 
conclusions may be reached the Board of Control 
would welcome carefully considered communica- 
tions discussing the problems treated in such publi- 
cations, or any other questions concerning the 
State’s work of education. 


REIN & SONS COMPANY, HOUSTON 


Austin, Texas, December 16) 1914: 


To the Honorable Members of the Board of Regents of the Uni- 
versity of Texas: 


Gentlemen: I appreciate very highly the confidence implied 
in your invitation to prepare a statement ernbodying my ideas 
concerning the future of the University of Texas. I am to state 
what I personally think, and the statement is to be binding on 
no one and to represent no one but myself. It will have such 
weight only as my record in Texas will give it, and will have the 
advantage or disadvantage, as the case may be, of being unin- 
fluenced by either hope of reward or fear of consequences. 


I shall tersely and bluntly state my views and, where it seems 
necessary, the reasons for holding them, without any effort to ar- 
gue or persuade. 


DUTIES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 


One controlling fact stands out in considering this question: 
The University of Texas is supported by all the people of Texas ; 
therefore, its opportunity and its duty is to serve all the people 
in each of the four main ways in which a higher educational in- 
stitution can serve them. 


The first duty of the University is to help its students, in and 
out of residence, and all other citizens who feel its influence, to 
perform the duties of citizenship with greater efficiency, broader 
knowledge, and fuller loyalty. 


The second duty of the institution is to train leaders and 
skilled workers for every occupation carried on in the State 
whose leaders can be helped by higher education; making a 
special point of training scientific investigators, teachers for 
schools and colleges, and prospective public servants. 


Its third main duty is to gather a body of trained investigators 

to study the social, governmental, industrial, and physical prob- 

. lems of the State; to give these investigators the best facilities 
. “for carrying on their work; and to publish their results. 


The fourth duty and opportunity of the University is to carry 
~to the people useful knowledge concerning the State and its 
~ problems in forms usable and easily understood. Knowledge as 

it exists in the minds of scientific workers, valuable as it is, is 
generally too technical for popular consumption and under- 
“Standing. It is necessary to translate this knowledge into the 
“tanguage of the people, simplifying it and adapting it to their 
‘Sractical uses, in order that they may profit by it; and the Uni- 
versity should have a body of workers competent to perform this 
difficult task. 


2 
J 


AGENCIES OF SERVICE. 


1 shall not attempt to enumerate in detail the agencies for 
service that the University has developed. Your Sixteenth Bi- 
ennial Report to the Governor and the Legislature, now in the 
hands of the printer, goes fully into this subject. I hope that 
every citizen of Texas interested in higher education will read 
this report thoughtfully. I shall, therefore, merely point out a 
few of the main facts with which it deals, and later comment on 
the guiding principles that, in my judgment, should be observed 
in developing the splendid educational agency possessed by the 
people of Texas in their State University. 


The outstanding fact is that the University of Texas is not 
one school, but seventeen schools and divisions working together 
harmoniously for the good of the people. It has a College of 
Arts, for liberal and cultural training; a Department of Educa- 
tion, to, investigate school problems, and to train administrators 
and teachers for the schools and colleges of the State; depart- 
‘ments for research and for the training of leaders in law, en- 
gineering, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, science, business and 
industry, home-making and household management, music, and 
journalism; a Summer School, chiefly for the benefit of the © 
teachers of the State; a scientific bureau to investigate and give, 
in popular form, information concerning the mineral resources 
of the State, including oils and fuels, building material, etc., a 
scientific bureau dealing, in similar spirit, with municipal prob- 
lems; a department charged with the sympathetic visitation of, 
and the giving of friendly aid to, urban and rural schools; and 
a Department of Extension, through which the teachers and 
other agencies of the University bring its skilled help to the 
busy men and women who cannot personally attend the Univer- 
sity, by offering college courses through correspondence, and 
by studying and giving out information concerning schools, agri- 
cultural problems—notably the vital and difficult problems of 
farm marketing, rural credits, and business management—and 
the problems of the home, especially of the rural home. 


These varied agencies are supplying the State with good cit- 
izens, trained to be leaders as teachers, lawyers, civil, mechanical 
and electrical engineers, architects and draftsmen, physicians, 
pharmacists, nurses, scientific investigators, bankers, merchants, 
business men, and women competent to manage households and 
homes. 

How can the best service be secured for the State from these 
many agencies and others not enumerated, and how can their 
healthful development be best encouraged? In what directions 
should they develop? I shall discuss these questions under four 
heads: (1) the staff; (2) developments of service; (3) the 
plant, and (4) University organization. 


4 


THE STAFF. 


The first and continuous concern of those who wish the Uni- 
versity to become great in power and service should be to get and 
to keep a strong staff for administration and instruction. Men 
make a university. It can grow great in humble and cramped 
quarters ; it cannot grow great without strong men. 


Difficult as it is to get and to keep strong men and women 
for the service of the University, it is at least equally difficult 
to accord them the treatment and to furnish them with the op- 
portunities which, in combination, will cause them to give, in 
return, the most energetic, most expert, and most loyal service 
that is in them. A university cannot get the best service from 
its professors and other officers by regimenting them. It can- 
not get the best service by treating them as mere employees, 
subject to orders, without initiative, and without an inspiring 
and dignified part in the upbuilding of the institution. Men and 
women who come into university work have gone through a 
long and expensive apprenticeship. Their hands, brains, and 
hearts have been trained for a special service. The work ex- 
pected of them is of a high order and of deep human signifi- 
cance. If treated as mere cogs in a machine; if assigned merely 
mechanical tasks,—they become dispirited and disheartened ; the 
aspirations with which they entered upon their work are dim- 
med; and the service they render loses that human quality which 
gives it its greatest value. 


Those who do not know that noble animal, the fine-bred, 
high-spirited horse, may think that they can get better service 
by jerking the curb, plying the whip, and jamming the spurs 
home. Those who understand him know fully that a soothing 
hand, a firm and gentle word, appropriate food, good stalling, 
and a light harness that he does not feel, bring far better and 
higher results. Those foolish enough to hitch him to the plow, 
run crooked furrows, and lose many races. 


A faculty that is nagged, continuously inspected, overbur- 
dened with routine, hampered with regulations, denied opportuni- 
ties for self-expression and for translating its loyalty and interest 
into acts, is incapable of rendering the high human service for 
which it enlisted. 

The business of the University should be conducted in as 
business-like a way as possible. Some of it can be managed by 
specially trained men, but much of it must be managed by mem- 
bers of the faculty. In a university, investigation, teaching, and 
business of certain kinds are so organically interrelated that the 
most skillful surgeon could not dissect them apart; or, if he 
did so, by some impossible skill, the severed tissues would with- 
er and die. A number of members of the present faculty are 
_ good business men, and no doubt the faculty will always have 


3 


some men of this type. But the men who come into a faculty 
are not primarily trained for business efficiency. Their chief 
training is for scholarship and teaching. It would be as rea- 
sonable to expect them to conduct a business up to the last notch 
of efficiency as it would be to expect the traveling salesman of a 
hardware concern to write like Shakespeare, speak lke Demos- 
thenes, or sing like Melba. Should such excellence of perform- ' 
ance be required of the latter, the sales of the company would 
fall off, and its literary output, oratory, and songs would be none 
the better. 


Faculty men and women are reasonable. They know that 
organization is necessary; they know that leadership is indis- 
pensable; they know that loyal and proper subordination is re- 
quired for the success of the cause. They respond generously to 
generous treatment; they repay trust with devotion; they wel-_ 
come opportunities to help in a cause of significance. They ask 
only to be treated fairly, like human beings engaged in a great 
work to which their lives are devoted. 


Bricks are not made without straw. Men cannot work with- 
out tools. Laboratories and libraries, together with money 
enough, and other important aids, such as clerks, stenographers, 
and assistants, to carry the deadening routine, are the tools of 
university men. Many a good man will come to the University, 
even at a sacrifice of salary, if he is given these tools. Many a 
one will stay if he has these tools. A denial of them has caused 
many to leave, and will cause more to leave in the future. 

Like their fellows, most university men have families. It 
is their duty and privilege to care for these families and to look 
forward to the future of their children. They cannot pay their 
bills with high ideals, or educate their children on the scholarly 
output of studies and laboratories. They care less than most 
men for money, but they need it for their necessities and for the 
legitimate requirements of their families. They cannot disre- 
gard salary. 

The salary scale of the University of Texas is far too low. 
The State Universities at all comparable with this institution 
pay at least one and a half times as much as we pay here. The 
scale that obtains in the stronger endowed universities of the 
country is even double our present scale. For years, it has been 
useless for the University of Texas even to attempt the recruit- 
ing of its faculty from among the acknowledged leaders in the 
various subjects. It has had to be contented with seeking the 
services of young men of good training, ability, and promise, 
with futures undetermined and possibly disappointing. It has 
been fortunate in its choices, and has a strong faculty. But it 
cannot make fortunate guesses always. It should be able to fill 
at least its most important vacancies with men whose reputation 
and capacity have been fully proven. 


6 


Moreover, the University has suffered greatly in the past, and 
will continue to suffer, from the loss of some of its strongest 
men, attracted elsewhere each year by greater opportunities and 
higher salaries. It should not be in so large a measure a train- 
ing camp of passage for bright, capable men, who are drawn 
from it into permanently attractive service elsewhere. 


Until the present scale is raised by a half, and eventually 
doubled, Texas cannot have a really great University. 


DEVELOPMENTS OF SERVICE. 


The University is undermanned. It has too few teachers 
for its students. It has 5.7 teachers per hundred students in the 
regular session; whereas the average per hundred in state uni- 
Wereiies scomparable with. “lexas is 9/5, “Aga result) many 
classes are too large; students do not receive the individual at- 
tention they need; and instruction tends to become mechanical. 
Boys and girls who, with a little more attention, would become 
good students, fail, get discouraged, leave, and lose the only op- 
portunity that will come to them for a higher education. Others 
who do not leave, receive an inferior training. The University 
needs more teachers. 


All, or nearly all, of the departments of teaching, investiga- 
tion, and general service that it will need are present, at least in 
germ, in the University now. But one or two should be added, 
and several should be further developed in the near future. 

A school of art should be established. For lack of it, much 
talent is going to waste, and life in Texas is grayer, less pleasant, 
and less inspired than it should be. If the State had more art, 
its citizens would wander less, and fewer of the best type would 
leave. | 


Work in agriculture should be established at the earliest pos- 
sible moment. Texas is overwhelmingly rural; agriculture is its 
chief occupation. Every boy and girl of college age should be 
able, whatever the college attended, to learn as much about agri- 
culture as he or she can be induced to absorb. No institution has 
a right of monopoly on this subject. The young people of Texas 
cannot know too much about it. 

Our Department of Extension is serving the people well. 
It should be fostered and expanded with thoughtful judgment. 
It is the chief agency for diffusing, throughout the State, use-’ 
ful knowledge that the people can digest and apply, and should 
be fashioned into a highly efficient instrument for the accom- 
plishment of this most difficult undertaking. Former President 
Houston, now National Secretary of Agriculture, says that the 
people can use only such scientific knowledge as has been wean- 
ed. I know of no more telling word to characterize the chief 
duty of the department. Scientific knowledge is born of its 


7 


father, the investigator, and its mother, the library-laboratory. 
As it first appears, it cannot stand alone and make its way among 
men for their use and service. In order that it may make its 
way, it must be adapted and fashioned into forms qualifying it 
for independent usefulness. It must be so trained and remade 
as to be able, without aid of scientist, library, or laboratory, to 
make a place for itself in the minds of busy men and women, un- 
accustomed to and unskilled in dealing with abstract truths. 
Pure science must become applied science, and applied science 
must be made over into popular knowledge. 


It is supremely difficult to accomplish this. _ But it can be 
done, and has been and is being done, notably in Denmark, Hol- 
land and Germany, the most efficient and thrifty of peoples. If 
Texas is wise enough to support generously the Department of 
Extension of the University and to develop it to its full power, it, 
with the aid of other agencies, can help the people to use the 
rich and varied resources of the State, in men and materials, and 
to transform this great commonwealth into one of the most pros- 
perous, efficient, and happy areas in either hemisphere. 


But, in order that knowledge should be diffused, it must first 
be born. And knowledge of the physical, industrial, and social 
resources of Texas is scant indeed. Compared with what we 
could know, at present we know nothing. This means that the 
University must hum with investigation, as a hive hums with 
bees. It means, further, that the chief stress of effort should be 
laid on Texas problems. But it is equally important that this 
should not be done in too narrow and materialistic a spirit. In- 
vestigators can, to an extent, choose their own problems, and 
should be encouraged to choose those that are vital. Butit is sheer 
folly to attempt to choose their problems for them. A man skilled 
in the search for new truth must prosecute his search as his talent 
directs. He can be encouraged to seek it in practical directions 
rather than in others. But, if force is applied, the hen that lays 
these golden eggs will become sterile. Nor is it possible to 
know beforehand which products of the library and laboratory 
will be serviceable and which will not. Once more, new-born 
truth is like a new-born child. Its possibilities are so many, so 
varied, and so rich that none can foretell its future. Any child 
born today may, for all we know, become a Shakespeare, a 
‘Goethe, a Luther, a Washington, or a Lincoln. It is for this rea- 
son that childhood is sacred. And the same is true of new-born 
truths. Any one of them may aid and make possible practical ad- 
vances like those ushered into the world by the invention of the 
steam engine, the electric light, the trolley car and the new meth- 
ods in agriculture, in the chemical arts, or in the affairs of gov- 
ernment and social service. 


Germany, more than any other nation, has had the insight to 


8 


value investigation and the skill to apply its results to practical 
uses. As a consequence, in a brief half century, it rose from the 
position of a second-rate industrial power, or even lower, to a 
chief place among the nations in industry, commerce, manufac- 
ture, social organization, and the general diffusion of order and 
well-being. If the public men of Texas have the vision and will 
support and develop their University into first-class efficiency 
for the discovery and diffusion of knowledge, there is no reason 
why the progress here should be less rapid—it may even be 
more rapid—than the progress of the last few decades in Ger- 
many. 


THE PLANT. 


In a few subjects and directions, the equipment of the Uni- 
versity, in library and laboratories, 1s respectable. In most di- 
rections, it 1s quite insufficient. In none is it adequate. 


The insufficiency of the buildings of the University, in room, 
in kind, and in their suitability for its needs and purposes, is too 
well known to require more than mention. In your Sixteenth 
Biennial Report, you point out that at the present time there is 
urgent need of additional buildings whose estimated cost would 
be $1,700,000. It is safe to say that, if the University is to ren- 
der the services the people need, there should be invested in its 
buildings, within the next ten years, at least five or six mil- 
lion dollars. Later on, I will say something of the methods of 
raising this large sum. 

In this statement, a few words may be written concerning 
the character and grouping of the buildings that the University 
needs, and will ultimately have. This discussion conveniently 
falls under three heads: (1) instruction buildings; (2) dorm1- 
tories for men; and (3) dormitories, for women. 

Among the University’s buildings for administration and in- 
struction, a few, probably not more than three, should be, if pos- 
sible, the most beautiful and substantial in the world, not sump- 
tuous or fussily ornate, but solidly beautiful. These might well 
be the successor of the present Main Building and two others 
flanking it on either side, a library, and possibly a museum to 
house examples of Texas materials, products, and processes, 
with sufficient articles of historical significance to form an in- 
structive background. 


The remaining buildings for administration and instruction 
should, in my judgment, be workshops. The lines should be 
good, architecturally unexceptionable, and the material should 
be fireproof. The buildings, however, should be severely plain 
structures that invite to work, but flexible and easily changeable, 
so that, without undue expense, walls, whether outer or inner, 
may be torn down, additions built, and partitions shifted. Uni- 


2 


versities and colleges the country over are straight-jacketed by 
their buildings. Laboratories constructed as short a time ago 
as ten years obstruct rather than facilitate the work of the scien- 
tists and the students occupying them. Science is advancing so 
rapidly that no one can look many years into the future in deter- 
mining the facilities that will best aid its work. And science is 
a very personal matter. The laboratory of a scientist should fit 
him as any skilled worker’s tool fits his hand. With a rapidly 
changing personnel on all faculties, especially on ours, this ren- 
ders imperative a highly flexible style of construction for the 
working buildings of the University. Ambitious citizens unac- 
quainted with these facts will no doubt urge you to construct 
every building out of imperishable granite, so it may last for- 
ever. I am sure it would be wiser to construct most university 
buildings out of I-beams with hollow tile, waterproof cement on 
metal lathing, or some other material equally inexpensive and 
flexible, using this construction both for outer and inner walls. 


Dormitories for men students should, I think, be scattered ; 
for women students, gathered into one group, according to the 
customary plan. With the latter suggestion, no doubt all will 
agree, for obvious reasons. The suggestion for men has not 
been deliberately adopted by any university, so far as I am 
informed. But, after much thought, I have become convinced 
that it is wise. There is nothing so wholesome for young men 
attending college as to live in houses surrounded by the dwellings 
of average men, women and children. In earlier days, when col- 
leges educated young men exclusively for the learned profes- 
sions, in following which they would, in the main, be brought 
into contact with only the more prosperous classes, little was 
lost and something gained by segregating them, away from or- 
dinary men, during their college years. But today our univer- 
sities, especially our State universities, are training young men 
for higher efficiency in the ordinary rough and tumble of life. 
A large part of their efficiency consists in a superior aptitude in 
dealing and in getting on with all sorts and conditions of men. 
With this end in view, I think it is obviously advantageous for 
young men, during their four formative years in college, to con- 
tinue in the closest contact possible with the average of their 
fellow-citizens. It is also of the highest advantage to them to 
remain under the refining and safeguarding influence of good 
women and young children. All these things can, I think, be 
best accomplished by scattering the dwelling places of men 
students about the residential district of a city like Austin. 


UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATION. 


The University has two governing boards, a faculty, a student 
body, some twenty thousand graduates and other former stu- 
dents, and an interested constituency consisting of the entire pop- 


10 


ulation of the State. These various component parts of the Uni- 
versity are organized reasonably well, but not so well that im- 
provements are impossible. 


Of the part played by students, it is not necessary to say 
more than a word here; for the reason that they do their part 
quite as efficiently as can be at all reasonably expected—more 
efficiently, [ am persuaded, than practically any other student 
body in the country. Their place in the life of the University 
will no doubt be improved in the future, but the improvement 
is likely to be in detail rather than in general plan. 


The alumni are giving help to the institution that is increas- 
ing rapidly in amount, in intelligence, and in efficacy. They can 
do much more than they have done, and will, beyond question, 
avail themselves of their opportunity in the future. I do not be- 
lieve that they will make the fatal mistake that some alumni 
bodies have made—the mistake of attempting to control the Uni- 
versity. Some institutions, in and out of Texas, have been 
greatly damaged by the indiscreet, excessive, and ill-informed in- 
terference of alumni. One or two institutions outside the State 
narrowly escaped serious calamity, because of their alumni’s ill- 
judged efforts to aid. But our alumni, I am glad to say, are of 
a different temper. 


It has been the custom here, as at all. other well-organized 
universities, to leave educational questions to the initiative of 
the faculty, who are the institution’s experts in matters educa- 
tional. This is a wise custom, from which I hope there will be 
no departure. The faculty should determine the subjects and 
methods of investigation, the arrangement of courses, their con- 
tent, the methods of teaching, the requirements for degrees, and 
the regulations (so far as regulations are needed) binding upon 
students and fixing their status in the life of the University. The 
president should act as the leader of the faculty. But his proper 
function is to take counsel and to make suggestions. It is not 
to issue orders, or to drive his own ideas rough-shod over un- 
willing and unconvinced professors. Being charged with the duty 
of supervising all the activities of the University, as distinguish- 
ed from the more restricted emphasis of interest and duty that 
naturally fall to individual professors, he should be able more 
easily to bring into educational discussions the wider points of 
view of the general interest and of the public good; while they, 
in turn, are more competent to see to it that the specialized op- 
portunities for service of the particular departments are not lost 
sight of in exaggerated zeal for immediate results, on the one 
hand, or for the attainment of distant aims, on the other. 

A faculty is open to three chief dangers: (1) the tendency to 
encourage too much inbreeding through the selection, as assist- 
ants, of favorite and unduly subordinate students of mediocre 
ability; (2) the disposition to undervalue new subjects of in- 


1a! 


struction and new university activities with which their own 
training has not made them familiar, and with which their nat- 
ural and wholesome conservatism prevents them from sympa- 
thizing; and (3) the tendency to: indulge an amiable and easy 
senatorial courtesy, with an over-tenderness for the mere foibles 
and personal preferences of their colleagues. Because of these 
inherent qualities of a faculty, which are a part of its strength 
when not exaggerated, it is best that appointments and promo- 
tions, the administrative organization of the University, the de- 
cision as to the launching of new projects of activity, and the 
administrative detail of the University in its inner workings, 
should continue in the control of the Board of Regents, the Pres- 
ident, and the Deans, as the necessity in each case may require. 


The government of the University is vested, aside from con- 
stitutional provisions adopted by the people as a whole, in its two 
boards ; the Legislature, including the Governor, and the Regents. 
Of the part played by the Legislature, I shall speak under a later 
head. 3 


The Board of Regents is, ordinarily, the supreme authority ; 
and it is proper that it should fully reserve to itself the right to 
correct any important evil that may arise, and to launch any im- 
portant new departure that could not otherwise come into being. 
It cannot, however, conduct the affairs of the University in de- 
tail, except some business matters, chiefly external. This de- 
tailed management it must delegate to administrative officers, in- 
vestigators and teachers. Its chief functions are two in num- 
ber: (1) to determine the policies of the University; and (2) to 
judge whether its agents are carrying out these policies loyally 
and with full effectiveness. These duties call for broad and far- 
sighted wisdom, a keen aptitude for getting cogent information, 
great sagacity in judging men and their competence for the tasks 
assigned them, and a wise and self-denying prudence in deciding 
on the things that a governing board can do and the things that 
a governing board cannot do in the interest of the University. 


There is one type of governing board that attempts to conduct 
the business of a university in detail. Wherever found, this type 
of board has proved itself an inefficient instrument. I refer to a 
paid board, which I hope will never exist in control of any edu- 
cational institution in Texas. A board that is paid must devote 
its entire time to its official business; and this, together with the 
kind of men who inevitably constitute such a board, their num- 
ber, and the obligations under which they rest, fatally prevents 
it from performing the highest duties of a governing board, and 
fatally compels it to perform duties for which it is not fitted. No 
large enterprise can be successfully administered by a commit- 
tee or commission; the chief executive must, for efficiency, be an 
individual, with a staff of expert aids. And yet the members of 


12 


_ 


a paid board, of necessity, administer the institution in order to 
earn their salaries, as their entire time cannot be filled in defin- 
ing policies and in performing other proper functions. A paid 
board gives over the administration of an institution to political 
control, as its members are, of necessity, political appointees, and 
withdraws administrative direction from a non-political and in- 
dependent chief executive, appointed indefinitely during good 
‘behavior and satisfactory service. The members of a paid board 
cannot, as statutes are drawn, and must be drawn, receive suf- 
ficiently high pay to attract men of first-class ability, and-their 
tenure has to be so short and so uncertain that the most desir- 
able men will not serve. Men of large and successful business 
and professional experience will serve on unpaid boards, whose 
members devote only a fractional part of their time to their of- 
ficial duties. Men of this desirable type will not serve on a paid 
board. 


Probably the greatest danger to which the Regents are ex- 
posed arises from the many temptations persistently thrust upon 
them to consider the personal and political obligations under 
which they le in the management of the affairs of the University, 
especially in appointments. Ifa board succumbs to this peril, it 
injures the University entrusted to its management grievously, 
and it may be irreparably. The ideal regent is an active business 
or professional man who mixes with his fellows in the conduct of 
large affairs and enjoys the interest and participation in public 
activities properly expected of good citizens. These very quali- 
fications bind such men in strong ties of personal, professional 
and political friendship to other strong men, and give these oth- 
ers the right to call upon them for favors in return for favors 
done. The Board of Regents of the University of Texas, with 
remarkably few exceptions, has withstood these temptations. As 
compared with many another institution, the University can be 
said to have been clean in this respect. Of this record, the people 
have a right to be proud. 


But there are constant dangers that the record will be marred, 
and that ominous departures from wholesome practice will take 
place. If even a few members of the governing board become 
actively desirous of listening to personal and_ political sug- 
gestions at the expense of the higher interests of the University, 
it is always possible that the senatorial courtesy that renders 
the business of the Regents so pleasant to conduct and so smooth 
of operation will come into play, and prevent other regents from 
standing out against baneful suggestions. 


The situation here is identical, in its general features, with 
the situation in which every other state university finds itself. 
One device has been found effective by all the strong universi- 
ties in averting this great danger. That device has been recently 


13 


adopted here, and it 1s to be hoped that it will continue to have 
a place among the standing regulations of the Regents of the 
University. 1 refer to the self-denying ordinance by which the 
Regents agree that they will make no appointments, promotions, 
demotions, or dismissals that are not recommended by the Presi- 
dent of the University. He has no right to engage in private 
business, and should be dismissed summarily if he takes part in 
politics of any kind. He therefore has no personal obligations 
and no political obligations; he is under no temptation to rec- 
ommend appointments or other changes in the personnel of the 
University because of such solicitations; and, knowing that the 
presence in the University of strong men fairly dealt with is the 
indispensable basis for its prosperity and for the success of his 
administration, he is under the most persuasive inducement to 
govern himself accordingly. 


THE LEGISLATURE AND LEGISLATION, 


I have spoken of the Legislature as one of the governing 
boards of the University, and so it is. It governs the University 
by determining biennially what funds shall be available for the 
_ carrying on of its activities; and, in performing this function, it 
from time to time at least prevents things from being done which 
its colleagues, the Regents, believe to be desirable, or even all 
but necessary. Moreover, in measures besides the money bills, 
the Legislature exercises control over the University. If this 
function is exercised in a responsible spirit, the Legislature can 
greatly help the institution both negatively and positively. 


The corollary is that the Legislature can greatly injure and 
hamper the University. It seems plain that a body of men, 
many of whom are serving their first term, and none of whom 
have any continuous or intimate knowledge of the workings of 
the institution, cannot, with profit to the State, attempt to direct 
its affairs in any detail. 


At the same time, the Legislature can not escape the duty 
of giving some directions to the University; and it is to be 
hoped that it will, in time, devise some method of performing this 
duty that will enable it to deal with so important a matter in a 
manner less casual than it has heretofore adopted. I believe it 
would be a good plan for the Legislature to employ, every few 
years, a small expert commission, made up of two leading educa- 
tors, from without the State, of National prominence and com- 
petence, and of one first-class business expert, this commission 
being charged with a thorough detailed study of the institution 


and the formulation ofa report, with criticisms and constructive 
suggestions. 


If the University is to serve Texas as it should, its income 
must be greatly increased—in fact, more than doubled. A mod- 


14 


ern State university cannot operate efficiently on less than two 
millions a year; and, in a huge State like Texas, it should, in the 
near future, be provided with three millions annually. Three 
universities in States much smaller are expending nearly the 
latter sum today, to the great benefit of their constituencies. 


In addition, the following measures of legislation would, I 
believe, be very helpful to the University in the performance of 
its duties of service, and correspondingly helpful to the State 
as a whole: (1) a statutory measure levying a special tax for the 
support of the institution; (2) an amendment repealing the por- 
tion of Section 14 of Article VII. of the Constitution prohibiting 
appropriations of tax levies for the erection of University build- 
ings; and (3) a statutory measure, if the Constitution permits 
that method, authorizing the issuance of bonds, with interest and 
sinking fund payable out of the available University fund, for 
the construction of buildings and the purchase of additional 
grounds to enlarge the campus. 


The special tax has been so often and fully discussed that 
little need be said here. It costs no more to support the Uni- 
versity out of the proceeds of a special tax than out of biennial 
appropriations. The chief advantages of the tax are two: (1) the 
Regents will know what they can depend upon in the matter of 
support, and can lay their plans accordingly in a far-sighted and 
business-like way; (2) the University will be withdrawn further 
from the disturbing and perilous contact with politics into which 
the method of biennial appropriations unavoidably draws it. 


The University is the only institution in Texas and the only 
university in existence which is prevented by State Constitution 
from constructing buildings out of moneys appropriated from 
the general revenue or proceedings from tax levies. The pro- 
hibition was the chance enactment of a busy convention; has 
not the shadow of reason for its existence; does no particle of 
good; and should unquestionably be repealed at the earliest mo- 
ment possible. 


The briefest. study of the question makes it plain that those 
who object to authorizing the issuance of bonds under reason- 
able restrictions for the construction of buildings do so because 
they have given the question no study. The advantages of the 
plan are palpable, and there are no serious objections to it if the 
measure is properly drawn. It is a plan that has been adopted 
by every large private enterprise that is intelligently managed ; 
the plan that has been adopted in constructing practically all the 
existing school buildings in Texas and in other States, as well as 
by most counties and cities here and elsewhere. Its convenience 
arises from the fact that buildings are costly, and that it has been 
at no time possible in Texas to provide large enough buildings, 
good enough buildings and a sufficient number of buildings 


15 


to meet the needs, if their total cost is to be borne by the tax- 
payers of a single year. Its equity arises from the fundamental 
maximum of taxation, that those who enjoy the benefits derived 
from the proceeds of tax levies should pay the taxes, and that 
it is unfair for only a portion of those enjoying such benefits to 
meet the entire tax. Properly constructed buildings should last 
from thirty to a hundred years; their cost should be borne by 
the people enjoying and receiving the benefit from them at least 
during the thirty-year period. 

I am disposed to recommend a fourth legislative measure, if 
the Constitution permits, framed to disfranchise all teachers and 
other officers of the University, and possibly of the other State 
educational institutions, not in matters municipal or national, 
but in elections dealing with State officers and State issues. Uni- 
versity professors are officers of the State’s intellectual forces. 
Like officers of the National army and navy, who are disfran- 
chised, to their benefit and the benefit of the Nation, it is their 
duty to co-operate with the political officials of the State; and 
any obstacle to sympathetic and harmonious co-operation should, 
I think, be removed. Men who attain to high political posts in 
this and in other States are compelled, under our system, to bat- 
tle vigorously for their victory. In doing so, they make strong 
friends and strong enemies. Moreover, the type of man who is 
likely to succeed has almost inevitably the qualities of a good 
friend and a vigorous enemy—a red-blooded man, and therefore 
often ruthless. It 1s inevitable that the thinking men who com- 
pose a university faculty should hold opinions of their own, 
and that some of them, from time to time a majority of them, 
should have voted against the Governor and other successful of- 
ficers of the State. It is inevitable that these officials should 
cherish some resentment and that co-operation between them 
and men of the University, that would be very helpful and serv- 
iceable to the people, becomes difficult, or even impossible. The 
disfranchisement, to the extent suggested, of University men 
would free them for such services, and do no substantial harm. 


ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 


In attempting to improve organization, the temptation is 
strong to overorganize. It is as important and as difficult to 
avoid overorganization as it is to escape from underorganization. 


There are those who have suggested that all State institutions, 
educational, penal, and eleemosynary, should be controlled by a 
single board; and, in fact, a few States have gone to this absurd 
extreme. I know of no serious proposal to repeat that error 
here. The problems of the three types of institutions are so dif- 
ferent that a board of Solons, Washingtons, and Bismarcks 
could not successfully administer them all together. It is not 
even clear that it would be well for Texas to place all its educa- 


16 


tional institutions under the management of a single board. In- 
deed, I am personally convinced that it would be a great blunder 
to do so. 


The Normal schools are a distinct type, and should follow a 
definite plan of development, unhampered by. the different types 
of service expected of other institutions. It if fortunate that 
they now have a governing board of their own. They have 
grown marvelously since it took charge, and are getting sounder, 
more efficient, and more helpful each year. It is to be hoped 
that no change will be madé which will slow down or harmfully 
divert their progress. 


Much the same is, true of the College of Industrial Arts.. It 
is, IN many ways, a unique institution—so unique that it can well 
be called an experiment, and, one must add, a successful experi- 
ment. Iam convinced that it is for the best interest of the State 
and of the young women who attend the College that it should be 
free to develop independently, and to work out a scheme of 
education peculiarly fitted to the needs of the young women in 
whose interest it was established and for the needs of the State, 
which these young women, as trained at the College, are pecu- 
larly fitted to serve. 


On the other hand, abundant experience compels the conclu- 
sion that it would be greatly to the interest of the State and the 
institutions concerned to place the University and the Agricul- 
tural and Mechanical College under a single governing board. 
A few bald facts, known as facts to every citizen of Texas inter- 
ested in higher education, enforces this conclusion. Under the 
Constitution, the University of Texas has two branches: the 
Medical Department, at Galveston; and the Agricultural and Me- 
chanical College, near Bryan. The University and the Medical 
Department have co-operated throughout their existence. Each 
has helped the other. There has been no friction, no misunder- 
standing, no hampering of one by the other. Each has developed 
healthfully. The University is a strong institution. The Med- 
ical Department is stated by the highest authorities on medical 
education in the country to be one of the very strongest that 
they know; and they have inspected each and every one with ex- 
pertness and thoroughness. These two parts of the University 
have been governed by the same board. 


Despite the provision of the Constitution, the University and 
the Agricultural and Mechanical College are, and always have 
been, separate and autonomous institutions. So little have they 
co-operated that it could be said, with substantial truth, that they 
have not co-operated at all. The rivalry between them has been 
keen, persistent, and mutually hurtful. Men of good sense be- 
longing to each of the two institutions sincerely believe outrage- 
ous things about equally sensible and sane men belonging to the 


17 


other institution. The rivalry has gone that far. Much of the 
time of the authorities of each institution has been, of necessity, 
given to ascertaining and guarding against the rival endeavors 
of the other, and has thus been withdrawn, by just so much, from 
helpful service to the common cause. Even more time on either 
part has been devoted to doing things in the hard way, that could 
have been done easily had there been co-operation. Each insti- 
tution is comparatively warped and lopsided because of the re- 
strictions on its development rendered inevitable by disunion. 
The spectacle of concord and co-operative service, on the one 
hand, and of discord and mutual thwarting, on the other, with 
the waste that they imply, is illuminating. 


Moreover, the situation in Texas is a monotonous repetition 
of the situation in forty-four other States. In twenty-three 
States, the several universities and agricultural and mechanical 
colleges together form single institutions. The growth of these 
institutions in power and service is the educational wonder of 
America. In addition to other splendid services, the aid they 
have given the agricultural interests of their States is very great, 
and has inspired the visits and awakened the admiration of ex- 
perts in agricultural education the world over. 


In twenty-one States, the several universities and agricul- 
tural and mechanical colleges are under separate managements. 
In them, the universities are comparatively weak; and, with one 
or two exceptions, the agricultural and mechanical colleges are 
deplorably low-classed institutions. Indeed, of the two, the lat- 
ter suffer more; largely for the reason that they have been forced, 
by the logic of the situation, to attempt to develop practically all 
university branches in addition to their work in agriculture; and, 
as a consequence, agriculture has greatly suffered and been inex- 
cusably inefficient. Furthermore, petty rivalries, unworthy per- 
sonal misunderstandings, thwarted efforts, undignified surmis- 
ings, and well-founded and ill-founded mutual criminations and 
recriminations squirm and wriggle over and through the higher 
education of twenty-one States. 


A new Federal statute, the Smith-Lever bill, so strongly re- 
inforces the reasons for union under one board as to render them 
irresistible. Under this act, if the State co-operates, $70,000 will 
be expended next year in extension work in agriculture and 
home economics for the benefit of rural Texas; and, seven years 
from now, $500,000 will be expended for these purposes. Under 
the provisions of the act and of Texas statutes, this money must 
be expended under the direction of an officer elected by the gov- 
erning board of the Agricultural and Mechanical College. So 
far as extension service in some obvious directions is concerned, 
the College is, beyond question, the State’s best agency. But it 
is a plain fact that the College is not, and cannot become, the best 


18 


ee 


agency for apportioning their share of these vast sums to the 
interest of the rural women and the rural homes of Texas, or for 
expending their portion; and any encouragement and aid, ac- 
ceptable to them, that can be brought to the rural women and the 
rural homes of Texas, will do an amount of good that is literally 
incalculable. It would be nothing short of a crime to render in- 
ferior service in a direction where the highest service is called 
for. That this higher service can be rendered by the University, 
with its vigorous work in home economics and its eight hundred 
young women in attendance, and by the College of Industrial 
Arts, with its well-organized teaching and eager feminine student 
body, is too obvious for insistence. And yet, under present con- 
ditions, with two boards, co-operation between the officers of the 
Agricultural and Mechanical College, well intentioned though 
they be, and the officers of the other two institutions, is so ham- 
pered and so difficult that little can be expected of it. 


And what is true of home economics under the Smith-Lever 
bill is equally true of rural education (it is well to remember that 
rural education is the weakest link in the State’s educational 
chain), and almost equally true of rural economics, rural social 
betterment, rural sanitation, and rural business. It can be said, 
without any danger of competent contradiction, that no expert 
in any one of these subjects would hesitate, after inquiry, to 
state that the University, with its strong departments in each of 
these directions, can render greater service than can possibly be 
rendered by the Agricultural and Mechanical College, in which 
work of this character does not exist, or exists only in feeble 
germs. This is no criticism on the College, for work of these 
types does not belong there. 


Were the governing board of the College also the governing 
board of the University, all of these difficulties, or nearly all of 
them, would disappear. And, when it is remembered that Texas 
is at least three-fourths rural, the advantage to the State of the 
utmost efficiency of service in aid of rural conditions is abundant- 
ly plain; and hardly any sacrifice of sentiment and reversal of 
tradition, especially of ill-working tradition, would be too high a 
price to pay for so immense an improvement. 3 


Should the single-board plan be adopted, it would be eminent- 
ly wise, in the act creating the board, to authorize it to establish 
and conduct at least four schools, laying emphasis on extremely 
practical agricultural training, one in each of the sections of the 
State characterized by distinctive soil and climatic conditions. 
The main purpose of these schools should be to train skilled 
farmers and farmers’ wives rather than to impart any large 
amount of scientific knowledge touching agriculture. These 
schools should help to hold a majority of rural-bred young people 
on the farms, and should never develop into institutions of the 


19 


NNN 


highest learning. They should train for farming as a trade 
rather than as a profession. In order to co-ordinate their work 
with that of the University and the Agricultural and Mechanical 
College, and more especially in order to prevent them, under pres- 
sure of local ambition, from being developed into large and cost- 
ly institutions, these schools should be governed by the board 
mentioned above. [Excellent schools of this type have been in 
successful operation for years in Denmark. In this country, the 
best examples are found in Minnesota. 


Like every other college, the Agricultural and Mechanical 
College will draw most of its students from nearby counties. The 
boys ‘and girls needing agricultural training in other sections of 
the State have a right to be given such training. Texas needs 
more rather than less of it, and more institutions rather than few- 
ep to cive ute, reine schools suggested are established and al] 
the present State institutions meet adequately the need of their 
students for agricultural education, rural schools will grow up 
more rapidly, and enlightened, skillful, and therefore contented, 
farmers will multiply. Centers of distribution for agricultural 
information will be nearer to all, and an intelligent appreciation 
of the possibilities and value of the fundamental calling of the 
people of Texas will become widespread over the State. 


In this connection, mention should be made of the belief of 
many good lawyers that the Board of Regents of the University, 
under the Constitution, has been, since its creation, and now is, 
the governing board of the Agricultural and Mechanical College. 
The constitutional provision in point (Section 13, Article VII.) — 
does not give directions to the Legislature, as do many others. 
It is self-enacting, and reads as follows: “The Agricultural and 
Mechanical College is hereby made and constituted a branch of 
the University of Texas.” How the College can be an independ- 
ent and autonomous institution, under a separate board, and at 
the same time be a branch, in any conceivable meaning of the 
word, is difficult—indeed, all but impossible—to understand, 


CONCLUSION. 


My purpose was to discuss only the most important questions. 
I have been compelled to omit some of these. But, incomplete as 
the statement is, in some respects, and too long, I submit it for 
your consideration, in the earnest hope that it may be of some 
small service, and may, most inadequately and in part, pay the 
heavy debt I ow l 
versity, and the State. 





S, E. MEZES. 





